Just a small town girl...wait no. That is a Journey song. Katie Sluiter is a small town girl, but she is far from living in a lonely world. She is a high school English teacher, college adjunct instructor, freelance writer, mother, and wife. Life has thrown her a fair share of challenges, but her belief is that writing through them makes her stronger.

we’ve done him every year. The first year, Eddie was 6 months and didn’t care WHOSE lap he was on…he was just happy. Last year when he was 18 months, Santa may as well been on fire. That is how hard Eddie cried. This year? well, you can see how at 2.5 he prefers not to make eye contact. he he he.

My son did the same thing this year. He’ll be 4 end of January and is really into Santa this year. He talked the entire car ride there about what he was going to ask for and how he would tell Santa what his baby sister wanted, then we get there and he COMPLETELY clammed up. He refused to smile for any of the pictures and finally after being asked about a dozen times what he wanted for Christmas he kind of shrugged and said “don’t know”. That’s all his little over excited brain could come up with. Poor guy, Hopefully next year he’ll actually get to speak a full sentence.

I have a FABULOUS picture of two of my three children with Santa this year (after waiting in line for 1.5 hours to see the big guy!). My 8 year old and my 4 year old sat on his lap, told him what they wanted, promised they’d been good than flashed their angelic smiles at the camera man who shot a fantastic photo of them.

My 2 year old however had a death grip on my pant leg the whole time. She wouldn’t even look at Santa.

Ummm…I told Chunky that Santa wouldn’t bring him a single thing if he didn’t sit up there and smile.
Cause I’m an awesome parent like that.
Eddie is scrumptious.
I especially love the deer in headlight pic.

For some reason, sitting on Santa’s lap has always weirded me out. I don’t know why. In any case, I suspect we won’t be taking G to have his pic taken with Santa unless he makes the request (which he won’t be able to do for a few years yet). But I’m glad that Eddie, even if he wasn’t thrilled during the event, enjoyed it after the fact.